The End
by Yuisaki
Summary: AE. In which Aira hadn't pulled off the Aurora Rising Dream successfully - and lost her memories as a result.


**Title: **The End

**Rating:** T for darker themes

**Author: **Yuisaki

**Pairing: **... Author is using Author privileges and is not telling anyone until it is blatantly obvious.

**Summary:** Alternate ending. In which Aira hadn't pulled off the Aurora Rising Dream successfully - and lost her memories as a result.

**Beta'd by: **No one currently, and unedited as of September 15th, 2013.

* * *

Everything was going so perfectly.

It _was._

He saw everything in the crowd, several rows away from the rink, but still close to it nonetheless.

He saw everything clearly. He trained his eyes solely on her, staring at her fluid and elegant form skating without a care on the stage.

But then without warning, her flawless form broke for a second, only to resume gracefully a second later. He thought he imagined it, and he didn't check to see if the others had saw it as well. He just sat on the edge of his seat, his eyebrows furrowed and his vibrant violet eyes filled with something he hadn't felt for others in a long time - worry.

She had started circling around the rink, her arms flowing in and then out in the semblance of a swan - the signature pose for starting the Aurora Rising, or the other variations for it, since Rhythm had performed the Aurora Rising Final minutes ago.

Though this - this was different. He could sense it, and he knew that Hibiki and Wataru and Rhythm and Mion and all the other skaters in the rows could too.

Something was horribly wrong, and as she spun in the air with her arms close to her chest, he saw it.

The necklace had shattered.

The necklace he had made for her, slaved over for hours without end, and finally gave it to Aira with a faint heat on his cheeks, all for the purpose of protecting her - it had broken.

He could only watch, paralyzed with despair and shock and horror all rolled into one, as she performed the Aurora Rising Dream and was proclaimed the Prism Queen.

He didn't feel anything for her though. He just sat there as everyone else ran backstage to greet her - until realization finally struck him, and he ran like he had never run before, passing all of them in his long strides possessed by panic.

And he had been the one to catch her as she collapsed to the ground, his tears falling on her horribly pale face. He hadn't even realized he was crying or trembling, for that matter, until Hibiki and Wataru laid a hand on his shoulders, their own form of comforting him.

That was probably when he broke for the second time.

Sho watched her now, her chest rising and falling weakly as the monitor beeped continually next to her. He almost wanted to smash it, to destroy it and yell at it - at least do something about it, because that insufferable sound was the only thing he had heard for the past _six_ months.

He couldn't though. Because Aira was just lying there, looking so frail and weak and utterly, completely dead.

It horrified him.

So he just allowed it to be, kept holding her cold hand while keeping his eyes fixed on her with a certain tired intensity only Sho could have.

And he waited.

Waiting for her to wake up and smile at him, laughing at his unfound worries, to tell him everything was going to be fine because he needed that so badly at that moment.

_Six months. _She had stayed in a coma for _six months. _All his doubts and demons came haunting him and torturing his mind at that exact moment, making him want to scream in frustration and pain.

_Will she even remember you?_

_She won't love you. Not that she did before, but there's now a zero percent chance of that happening._

_She could still die. _

_All you're doing is watching her wither away on her deathbed. You're not helping her at all. _

_I know that! _he yelled in his mind. Even in his mind, his voice was broken.

Just like the rest of him. Broken beyond repair for the second time. Though this time, if she did die - _nonono, _he thought disjointedly, _she can't nonono - _he knew he would die with her. If not physically, then mentally. There would be no going back for him.

He wanted her to wake up so badly at that moment. He needed her to tell him everything was going to be okay, even if it obviously wasn't.

He had learned his lesson a long time ago, though. His life sucked.

He knew it, because as her eyes finally, finally, finally opened for the first time in months, he couldn't be more grateful to everything and every god and deity and anything that was controlling them above.

He knew fate was cruel to him, because as she slowly sat up, ignoring his protests, she turned those eyes on him - the eyes he had fallen for, no matter how much he denied it. The eyes he loved to see, and probably wouldn't mind waking up to every morning.

As those eyes settled on him, he knew fate was cruel when she looked at him without a trace of recognition or guilt she should have felt - he knew Aira would've felt it - or worry over the bags under his eyes and the haunted look his own eyes had gotten. He saw none of those things.

Instead, what he saw wasn't anything he wanted to see. What he saw was curiosity, confusion, and shock, all the things he was feeling right at that second.

And when she finally spoke, her melodious ringing out soundly in the white room, breaking the silence that had been thrust upon him for months, everything he was feeling - gratefulness, curiosity, worry, guilt, shock, everything - was gone and transformed into utter shock and horror and pure, raw sadness that burned him to the core.

Because the three words she said wasn't, "I'm sorry, Sho-san," or "What happened, Sho-san?" and certainly not, "I love you," as much as he wanted to hear it.

No, the three words were much cruel, even though Aira - _no, not Aira anymore,_ he thought numbly - hadn't meant it to be that way. It made him freeze and understand why the necklace had broken and how she got away with just a brief coma instead of what she would have gotten if his intentions of protecting her weren't pure, which was death. Though the fact that she could have died horrified him, it still didn't compare in anyway when she said the words.

"Who are you?"

And that destroyed him more than anything else.

With those words, the world he thought he knew crumbled into nothing.

That was the beginning of the end.

That was the beginning of _their _end.

* * *

Author's Notes: Yes, another one. I'm sticking with this one, and Time For Us as well. SO DON'T WORRY. I SHALL DEFINITELY FINISH THIS AND THAT OTHER STORY NO MATTER WHAT.

This is going to be a more serious and darker type of story. Prism Shows will be a minor part, and I'm going to be focusing more on the relationship-part of the anime. Identifying the friendships, strengthening them and making them believable. Of course, romance is going to be a major factor as well. Count on that. ;)

Review, please?

-Yuisaki


End file.
